The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Friday, June 23, 2017

The tectonic plates in the Middle East have shifted markedly with
President Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel, and his announced new
regional policy.

The new "test" of our
alliance will be whether the assembled nations will join in removing the
hateful parts of such a doctrine from their communities.

What still has to be considered is the U.S. approach to stopping
Iran from filling the vacuum created by ridding the region of the
Islamic State (ISIS), as well as Iran's push for extending its path
straight through to the Mediterranean.

The tectonic plates in the Middle East have shifted markedly with
President Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel, and his announced new
regional policy.

The trip represented the beginning of a major but necessary shift in US security policy.

For much of the last nearly half-century, American Middle East policy
has been centered on the "peace process" and how to bring Israel and
the Palestinians to agreement on a "two-state" solution for two peoples -- a phrase that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refuses to say.

First was shuttle diplomacy during 1973-74 in the Nixon
administration; then second, in 1978, the Camp David agreement and the
recognition of Israel by Egypt, made palatable by $7 billion in new
annual US assistance to the two nations; third, the anti-Hizballah
doctrine, recently accurately described by National Security Advisor
General H.R. McMaster, as Iran, since 1983, started spreading its terror
to Lebanon and elsewhere in the region. This last effort was often
excused by many American and European analysts as a result somehow, of
supposed American bad faith. Fourth, came the birth, in 1992, of the
"Oslo Accords" where some Israelis and Palestinians imagined that a
two-state solution was just another round of negotiations away.

Ironically, during the decade after Oslo, little peace was achieved;
instead, terror expanded dramatically. The Palestinians launched three
wars, "Intifadas," against Israel; Al Qaeda launched its terror attacks
on U.S. Embassies in Africa; and Iran, Hizballah, and Al Qaeda together
carried out the forerunner attacks against America of 9/11/2001.

Since 9/11, despite wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, terrorism has not
only failed to recede; on the contrary, it has expanded. Iran has become
the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism, and the Islamic State (ISIS) has tried to establish a transnational "Islamic caliphate." Literally tens of thousands
of terror attacks have been carried out since 9/11 by those claiming an
Islamic duty to do so. These assaults on Western civilization have
taken place on bridges, cafes, night clubs, offices, military
recruitment centers, theaters, markets, and sporting events -- not only
across the West but also in countries where Muslims have often been the
primary victims.

Particularly condemnable have been the improvised explosive device
(IED) attacks against U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, perpetrated
to a great extent by Iran, according to U.S. military testimony before Congress.

All the while, we in the West keep trying to convince ourselves that,
as a former American president thought, if there were a peace deal
between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, most of the terrorist
attacks we see in Europe and the United States "would disappear."

No matter how hard we may rhetorically push the "peace process",
there is no arc of history that bends naturally in that direction.
Rather, nations such as the United States together with its allies must
create those alliances best able to meet the challenges to peace and
especially defeat the totalitarian elements at the core of Islamist
ideology.

If anything, the so-called Middle East "peace process" has undercut
chances of achieving a sound U.S. security policy. While the search for a
solution to the Israel-Palestinian "problem" dominated American
thinking about Middle East peace for so many decades, other far more
serious threats materialized but were often ignored, not the least of
which was the rise of Iran as the world's most aggressive terrorist.The United States has now moved in a markedly more promising and thoughtful direction.

The new American administration has put together an emerging
coalition of nations led by the United States that seeks five
objectives:

(1) the defeat of Islamic State;(2) the formation of a coalition of the major Arab nations, especially Egypt and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to clean up in their own
back yards financing terrorism and providing terrorists with sanctuary.
As Elliott Abrams, an adviser to former U.S. President George W. Bush,
cautions us, however, this will not be an easy effort: "Partnerships
with repressive regimes may in some cases exacerbate rather than solve
the problem for us" but, Abrams says, "gradual reform is exactly the
right approach...";3) "driving out" sharia-inspired violence and human rights abuses from the region's mosques and madrassas;(4) a joint partnership with Israel as part of an emerging anti-Iran
coalition -- without letting relations with the Palestinian authority
derail United States and Israeli security interests; and(5) the adoption of a strategy directly to challenge Iran's quest for
regional and Islamic hegemony, while ending its role in terrorism.

Defeating Islamic State

Defeating ISIS began with an accelerated military campaign and a new
American-led strategy to destroy the organization rather than to seek
its containment. According to the new U.S. Secretary of Defense,
James Mattis, "Our intention is that the foreign fighters do not
survive the fight to return home to North Africa, to Europe, to America,
to Asia. We're going to stop them there and take apart the caliphate."

Secretary of Defense James Mattis. (Dept. of Defense/Brigitte N. Brantley)

So far, the United States coalition has driven ISIS from 55,000 square kilometers of territory in Iraq and Syria.

A New Coalition

Apart from a strategy to counter ISIS, the Trump administration also
called on our allies in the Middle East to put together a new joint multi-state effort
to stop financing terrorism. Leading the multi-state effort will be the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States, which together will
supposedly open a new center dedicated to the elimination of terrorist
financing. Positive results are not guaranteed, but it is a step in the
right direction.

According to Abdul Hadi Habtoor, the center will exchange
information about financing networks, adopt means to cut off funding
from terrorist groups, and hopefully blacklist Iran's jihadist army, the
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). These measures in turn will
help eliminate the sanctuaries from which terrorists plot and plan.

This move also places emphasis on the responsibility of states to
eliminate terrorism. As President Trump said, each country -- where it
is sovereign -- has to "carry the weight of their own self-defense", be "pro-active" and responsible for "eradicating terrorism", and "to deny all territory to the foot soldiers of evil".

This determination was underscored by many Arab countries breaking diplomatic relations
with Qatar for its support of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS.
Most of Qatar's Arab neighbors, including the Saudis, Egypt, and the UAE
did so, while the US, although denouncing Qatar's support of terrorism,
continues to maintain access to, and use of, its critical military base
there.

In short, the U.S. is playing good-cop, bad-cop in the region, while U.S. allies are putting together what Josh Rogin of the Washington Postdescribed as "a regional security architecture encompassing countries on the periphery of Iran."

Such an approach is not without risk: Turkey, allied with Iran and Qatar, has already has pledged
to help Qatar defy the Gulf States' trade cut-off. If Turkey, for
example, seeks to move its promised aid shipments to Qatar through the
Suez Canal, the ships could possibly be blocked by Egypt or attacked on
the high seas. Does the U.S. then come to the assistance of a NATO
member -- Turkey -- against an ally in the strategic coalition?

Drive Hateful Ideology Out

A companion challenge by the new American President underscored this
new security effort. President Trump said to the assembled nations of
the Islamic conference that they have to expel the ugly Islamist ideology from the mosques and madrassas that recruit terrorists and justify their actions.

Trump said: "Drive them out of your places of worship". Such words
had never been spoken so clearly by an American president, especially to
the collection of nearly all the Islamic-majority countries (minus the
Shi'ite bloc) gathered together.

The president's audience doubtless understood that he was speaking of
the doctrine of sharia (Islamic law). The new "test" of our alliance
will be whether the assembled nations will join in removing the hateful
parts of the doctrine from their communities. It was a sharp but
critical departure from the previous American administration's message in Cairo in 2009, and placed the Islamic doctrine that seeks to establish the sharia throughout the world in a contained context.

New Israeli Partnership

With Israel, the administration has cemented the next part of its strategy. Here the Trump administration successfully improved our political and military relations with Israel. Markedly so. One part of that effort was enhanced missile-defense cooperation called for in the FY18 United States defense budget, specifically to deal with Iranian and Iranian-allied missile threats.

On relations with the Palestinian Authority, the administration has moved to improve matters but has not moved to advocate a two-state solution -- for which there is no contemplated security framework sufficient to protect Israel.

Challenge and Roll Back Iran

The final part of the administration's strategy starts with a thorough review of our Iran strategy and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or "nuclear deal", with Iran. As Max Singer recently wrote,
even if we discount what secretive nuclear capability Iran may now
have, the Iranian regime will at the very least be much closer to
producing nuclear weapons down the road than when the JCPOA was agreed
to.

As Ambassador John Bolton has warned
the nuclear deal with Iran did nothing to restrain Iranian harmful
behavior: "Defiant missile launches... support for the genocidal Assad
regime... backing of then Houthi insurgency in Yemen... worldwide
support for terrorism... and commitment to the annihilation of Israel"
continue.

In addition,
uranium enrichment, heavy water production, the concealed military
dimensions of warhead development and joint missile and nuclear work
with North Korea all lend a critical urgency to countering Iran's lethal
efforts. The United States did not make these counter-efforts any
easier by providing to Tehran $100 billion in escrowed Iranian funds,
equivalent to nearly one quarter of the Islamic Republic's annual GDP.

The United States' and Europe's easing of sanctions on Iran has helped reintegrate Iran
into global markets via mechanisms such as the electronic payment
system run by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial
Telecommunications (SWIFT). That, in turn, has helped Iran expand
dramatically its military modernization budget by 33%, including deals worth tens of billions of dollars in military hardware with China and Russia.

Such Iran activity is described
by the Commander of U.S. Central Command, General Joseph Votel, as "the
most significant threat to the Central Region and to our national
interests and the interest of our partners and allies".

As such, it can only be challenged through exactly the kind of
military, political, and economic coalition the Trump administration is
seeking to band together, which would include the Gulf Arab nations,
especially Saudi Arabia, as well as Egypt, Jordan, and Israel.

The administration's five-step strategy has a chance to work. It
creates a policy to destroy ISIS; oppose Islamic terrorism and
specifically the imposition of sharia; adopt measures to go after the
financing of such terrorism; implement improvements in Gulf allies'
military capabilities -- including missile defenses -- parallel with
pushing NATO members to meet their military spending obligations; put
back into place a sound and cooperative relationship with Israel; and
specifically contain and roll back Iranian hegemonic ambitions and its
terror-master ways.

What still has to be considered, however, is the U.S. approach to
stopping Iran from filling the vacuum created by ridding the region of
ISIS, as well as Iran's push for extending its path straight through to
the Mediterranean.

If successful, some modicum of peace may be brought to the Middle
East. And the arc of history will have finally been shaped toward
America's interests and those of its allies, rather than -- however
inadvertently -- toward its mortal enemies.

Dr. Peter Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis, a defense consulting firm he founded in 1981, and was the senior defense consultant at the National Defense University Foundation for more than 20 years.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10559/strategic-objectives-middle-east Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Abbas knows, even if the American
representatives do not, that any move in the direction [of peace] would end his
career, and very possibly his life.

The current policy of the PA
leadership is to avoid alienating the Trump administration by continuing
to pretend that Abbas and his cronies are serious about achieving peace
with Israel. This is why Abbas's representatives are careful not to
criticize Trump or his envoys.

When Israel does not comply with their list of demands, the
Palestinians will accuse it of "destroying" the peace process. Worse
still, the Palestinians will use this charge as an excuse to redouble
their terror against Israelis. The Palestinian claim, as always, will be
that they are being forced to resort to terrorism in light of the
failure of yet another US-sponsored peace process.

No doubt, Abbas cannot find it within himself to clarify to the
American envoys that he lacks a mandate from his people to make any step
toward peace with Israel. Abbas knows, even if the American
representatives do not, that any move in that direction would end his
career, and very possibly his life. Abbas also does not wish to go down
in Palestinian history as the treacherous leader who "sold out to the
Jews." Moreover, someone can come along later and say, quite correctly,
that as Abbas has exceeded his legitimate term in office, any deal he
makes is illegal and illegitimate.

US envoys Jason Greenblatt and Jared Kushner, who met this week in
Jerusalem and Ramallah with Israeli and Palestinian Authority (PA)
officials to discuss reviving the peace process, have discovered what
previous US Middle East envoys learned in the past two decades -- that
the PA has not, cannot, and will not change.

During their meeting in Ramallah with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, the
two US emissaries were told that the Palestinians will not accept
anything less than an independent state along on the pre-1967 lines with
East Jerusalem as its capital.

Jared
Kushner (left), Senior Advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, meets
with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on June 21, 2017 in
Ramallah. (Photo by Thaer Ghanaim/PPO via Getty Images)

Abbas also made it clear that he has no intention to make concessions
on the "right of return" for Palestinian "refugees." This means he
wants a Palestinian state next to Israel while flooding Israel with
millions of Palestinian "refugees" and turning it, too, into another
Palestinian state.

At the meeting, Abbas also reiterated his demand that Israel release
all Palestinian prisoners, including convicted murderers with Jewish
blood on their hands, as part of any peace agreement. The release of
terrorists in the past has only resulted in increased terrorism against
Israel.

According
to Abbas's spokesperson, Nabil Abu Rudaineh, the PA president told
Kushner and Greenblatt that a "just and comprehensive peace should be
based on all United Nations resolutions (pertaining to the Israeli-Arab
conflict) and the (2002) Arab Peace Initiative." Translation: Israel
must withdraw to the indefensible pre-1967 lines and allow armed
Palestinian factions to sit on the hilltops overlooking Ben Gurion
Airport and Tel Aviv.

Abbas's position reflects accurately the policy of the PA leadership
over the past two decades -- a policy that has been regularly relayed to
all previous US administrations, successive Israeli governments and the
international community.

To his credit, Abbas has been nothing short of consistent. He has
never, ever, displayed a willingness to offer any concessions to Israel.
He misses no opportunity to reaffirm his demands to all world leaders
and government officials, with whom he meets on a regular basis.

Nonetheless, some in the international community still believe that
Abbas or any other Palestinian leader will be able to make concessions
in return for peace with Israel.

Incredibly, Kushner and Greenblatt seem to believe that they can succeed where all others have failed.

The two inexperienced US envoys are laboring under the illusion that
they will persuade Abbas and the PA leadership to drop demands such as
the "right of return," the release of imprisoned terrorists and a
cessation of construction in settlements.

Why President Trump's envoys are creating the dangerously misleading
impression that peace is possible under the current PA leadership is
nothing short of a mystery.

Creating such an impression is likely to boomerang with a vengeance;
the higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment. Giving the
Palestinians the feeling that the Trump administration holds a magic
wand for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will eventually
increase Palestinian bitterness and hostility towards both the Americans
and Israel. When the Palestinians wake up to the fact that the Trump
administration will not strong-arm Israel to its knees, they will resume
their rhetorical attacks against Washington, accusing it once again of
being "biased" in favor of Israel.

This was precisely the fate of previous US administrations and
presidents who disappointed the Palestinians by failing to impose
dictates on Israel. The Palestinians are still dreaming of the day that
the US or any other superpower would force Israel to comply with all
their demands.

When Israel does not comply with their list of demands, the Palestinians will accuse it of "destroying" the peace process.

Worse still, the Palestinians will use this charge as an excuse to
redouble their terror attacks against Israelis. The Palestinian claim,
as always, will be that they are being forced to resort to terrorism in
light of the failure of yet another US-sponsored peace process.

The Trump administration is making a colossal mistake in thinking
that Abbas or any of his Palestinian Authority cronies can exhibit any
flexibility whatsoever toward Israel, particularly concerning Jerusalem,
settlements and the "right of return."

No doubt, Abbas cannot find it within himself to clarify to the
American envoys that he lacks a mandate from his people to make any step
toward peace with Israel. Abbas knows, even if the American
representatives do not, that any move in that direction would end his
career, and very possibly his life.

Abbas also does not wish to go down in Palestinian history as the treacherous leader who "sold out to the Jews."

Despite the best intentions of the US envoys and others in the
international community, Abbas knows full well the fate of any
Palestinian leader who even considers "collaboration" with the "Zionist
entity."

Abbas, whose term in office expired in 2009 and is seen as an
illegitimate president by many Palestinians, is not even in a position
to offer Israel any concessions for peace. First, someone can come along
later and say, quite correctly, that as Abbas has exceeded his
legitimate term in office, any deal he makes is illegal and
illegitimate.

Abbas also cannot halt anti-Israel incitement; he cannot stop
payments to convicted murderers and their families and he cannot accept
Jewish sovereignty over the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Even if some of his aides sometimes come out with statements
suggesting that the PA leadership is prepared to consider some
concessions on these issues, these remarks should not be taken
seriously: they are only intended for Western audiences.

The PA's declared position is that it has already made enough
concessions by merely recognizing Israel's right to exist and dropping
Palestinian claims to "all of Palestine." This position argues that it
is Israel, and not the Palestinians, that needs to make concessions for
peace.

"We have reached the red line with regards to making concessions [to Israel]," explained
Ashraf al-Ajrami, a former PA cabinet minister. "We have already made a
series of concessions on the core issues, while Israel has not
presented us with anything."

It might be recalled that this statement by the former PA official is
a staggering lie, given the generous offers, gestures and concessions
made by successive Israeli prime ministers and governments over the past
two decades.

Again and again, all Israeli initiatives have been met with Palestinian rejectionism and stepped-up violence.

The offer made by Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David in 2000 to
withdraw from most of the territories Israel captured in 1967 was met
with the Second Intifada.

The Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip five years later was
misinterpreted by Palestinians as a sign of weakness and retreat, and
resulted in thousands of rockets and missiles being fired at Israel.

The current policy of the Palestinian Authority leadership is to
avoid alienating the Trump administration by continuing to pretend that
Abbas and his cronies are serious about achieving peace with Israel.
This is why Abbas's representatives are careful not to criticize Trump
or his envoys.

Abbas wants to deceive the Trump administration into believing that
he has the courage, will and mandate to make peace with Israel, the same
way he lied to previous Israeli prime ministers. This is the same Abbas
who, for the past 10 years, has not been able to even go back to his
private residence in the Gaza Strip, which remains under Hamas control.

But in private, some senior Palestinian officials have been
criticizing the Trump administration for simply daring to make demands
of the PA leadership, such as halting anti-Israel incitement and the
payment of salaries to imprisoned terrorists and their families. In
other words, what the Palestinian officials are saying is that either
Trump accepts our demands or he can go to hell.

"The Palestinian leadership rejects the demand to stop
financial aid to the prisoners and their families... Instead of setting
preconditions for the Palestinians, the Americans must demand an end to
Israeli settlement construction and incitement."

In the twisted world of the Palestinian Authority leadership, Israeli
demands for an end to the Palestinian glorification of murderers is
itself an act of "incitement."

How dare Israel demand that the PA leadership halt funds to
imprisoned terrorists and their families? How dare Israel expose
incitement and glorification of murderers and terrorists?

The PA leadership simply cannot fathom the problem with naming
streets, public squares and youth and women's centers after murderers of
Jews.

It is only a matter of time before the PA leadership begins openly to
accuse the Trump administration of being biased in favor of Israel. In
the world of Abbas and his cronies, any US administration that does not
swallow their lies and fabrications is a "hostile" party that is
controlled by Jews and Zionists.

This is precisely what the Palestinians said about Trump and his team during the US presidential election campaign.

The PA leadership has indeed softened its tone against Trump and his
advisors since they won the election. Yet this modified tone has one
goal: for the PA to avoid accusations of being anti-peace.

In fact, the PA leadership has changed its tone, not its tune. We are
witnessing a tactical and temporary move on the part of the
Palestinians. This play-acting will end soon enough. The question
remains, will the West notice that the curtain has gone down on the
show?

Bassam Tawilis a Muslim based in the Middle East.Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10573/palestinian-lies Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Concern growing in Israel that Iranian representative Ahmad Jalali will be chosen to lead UNESCO.

UNESCO headquarters in Paris

Reuters

There is growing concern in the Israeli Mission to the United Nations
that a prominent UN agency could soon find itself with an Iranian
representative at its helm, Israel Hayom reported.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) has been at the center of a string of controversies involving
Israel recently, including the passage of resolutions denying the Jewish link to Jerusalem and key religious sites in the city, including the Temple Mount.

Iran’s representative at UNESCO, Ahmad Jalali, is a leading candidate
in the UNESCO Steering Committee’s upcoming internal election.

The UNESCO Steering Committee, which includes 58 countries of the 195
currently represented at the UN, holds elections for committee chair
every two years. The current UNESCO committee chair is Michael Worbs, a
member of Germany’s UN delegation and a part of UNESCO’s Group I, made
up of Western states.

The next UNESCO chair is expected to be chosen from Group IV, which is made up of countries across Asia - including Iran.

Iran, say members of Israel’s UN Mission, is making a concerted
effort to win this year’s election, slated for October. The Iranian
candidate, Ahmad Jalali, chaired UNESCO’s 31st General Conference in
2001, and appears well-positioned to win.

Israel’s representative at UNESCO, Carmel Shama-Hacohen, called the
idea of Iran heading the organization “absurd”, but added that in the
UN, anything was possible.

“Having an Iranian as chairman of UNESCO is completely absurd; but in
UNESCO, any absurdity is liable to become a disturbing reality.”

David RosenbergSource: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/231436 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel: "I am certain that if war breaks out on the northern front, we need to take strong action from the word 'go.' ”

HERZLIYA, Israel — The next war in Lebanon will be so powerfully
punishing — with thousands of targets struck in the first day of an
attack — that hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians will have to
leave their homes or risk falling victim to “collateral damage,”
according to top Israeli military commanders here.

“I have good news for the people of Lebanon,” Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, the
commander of Israel's Air Force, told participants at the Herzliya
Conference on Wednesday. “Since Hezbollah has decided to be in urban
areas, in those closed apartments where they launch rockets, if the
people of Lebanon are to leave those houses before an event begins, they
will not be in harm’s way.

"I am certain that if war breaks out on the northern front, we need to take strong action from the word 'go.' ”

According to Eshel, Israeli air power — both qualitatively and
quantitatively — “will surprise our rivals in ways they can’t even
perceive.” He noted, presumably in reference to Israel’s war in Gaza
during the summer of 2014, that the Israeli Air Force “has had [the]
opportunity to test ourselves, so what I’m saying is not just a theory.”

Eshel noted that the lethality of Israeli air power, despite
“unprecedented precision,” has “some potential to damage those who are
uninvolved,” which presents limitations to Israeli war planners.

“This limitation, too, is taken into consideration. I don’t want to go
into too much detail, but we are trying to limit this as much as
possible. Morally speaking, we want to make that collateral damage as
little as possible. Not zero. I don’t want to delude myself. But as
little as possible.”

Eshel declined to explain how Lebanese civilians would leave their
homes, where they would go or who would be responsible for the
evacuation. But Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, Israel’s top military officer,
indicated that evacuations would be done by Israel.

In an address the previous evening to the same Herzliya gathering,
Eisenkot, the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, spoke
about “hundreds of thousands of civilians” who would need to be
evacuated in Israel’s next war with the Lebanese-based Hezbollah
militant organization.

“The moment we know the enemy goes into urban terrain, it becomes a
matter of morals and values. There are hundreds of thousands in the
civilian population. We’ll need to evacuate them … and we’ll have to do
that as quickly as possible. We need to preserve legitimacy while
fighting,” Eisenkot said.

Israel’s top military officer declined to say how such an evacuation
would be carried out without civilian consent or how Israel could
possibly venture such an undertaking without ruining the element of a
surprise attack and putting large numbers of Israeli forces in danger.

He noted, however, that the Air Force is capable of striking “thousands of targets a day should we be required to do so.”

Eisenkot, a former commander of Northern Command with territorial
responsibility for Lebanon and Syria, served as the IDF’s director of
operations during Israel’s last war in Lebanon in 2006. In the 11 years
since that war, he said, Israeli intelligence, air power and ground
maneuvering capabilities have improved tremendously as a result of
significant investment and training.

The IDF chief charged Hezbollah with “crudely violating” United Nations
Resolution 1701, which mandated demilitarization of the area beyond
Israel’s northern border, and claimed 240 villages and towns in south
Lebanon would be legitimate targets in the next war. “We have very good
intelligence, and we know them well. Hezbollah has 240 villages and
towns where almost every third or fourth house has some Hezbollah force
in it.”

Additionally, he said, Hezbollah has built up “thousands of underground
locations” and “many tens of thousands of rockets and other
capabilities,” most of which has been provided by Iran.

According to Eisenkot, Hezbollah is now heavily immersed in fighting in
Syria alongside Russia on behalf of the regime of Syrian President
Bashar Assad. This accruing military experience is something Israel
“cannot ignore,” he said. At the same time, Hezbollah has lost some
1,800 combatants over the last three years and suffered some 8,000
wounded.

The IDF chief acknowledged that Israel has made “great efforts” to stop
Iranian- or Syrian-supplied arms from reaching Hezbollah, actions that
until recently have been neither confirmed nor denied by Israeli
officials. “Preventing weapons from reaching the hands of Hezbollah is a
top priority for the IDF,” he said.

He also asserted that Hezbollah was taking possession of Russian
weaponry without authorization. “Russian weapons are getting into their
hands under the noses of the Russians without their approval,” Eisenkot
said.

In his June 21 address, Eshel, the Air Force commander, said that since
the 2006 Lebanon War, Israeli air power has improved to the point that
it will now take the service only 40 to 60 hours to strike the number of
targets attacked during the entire 34-day war 11 years ago. “I’m saying
that quantitatively speaking we have doubled or quadrupled [the ability
to generate and attack targets].”

Nevertheless, Eshel acknowledged that in the next Lebanon war — due to
Hezbollah’s acquisition of advanced capabilities — Israel should expect a
worse-case scenario where it sustains fire on some of its air bases
and/or airborne air assets. But, he insisted, “these two factors — fire
on Air Force bases and threats on aircraft … cannot stop our Air Force.

“This huge machine that is the sum of surprise, quality and quantity
will work. Don’t misunderstand me. There is no magic solution or spell.
But it is a potent power and a lot more than anyone can estimate.”

Barbara Opall-RomeSource: http://www.defensenews.com/articles/israeli-commanders-reveal-plans-for-mass-evacuation-of-lebanese-civilians-in-next-war Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

One police officer in critical condition, two communities terrorized.

Ramadan is in full swing – it doesn’t end until Saturday evening – and Britain has been a particular recipient of Islamic piety during the holy month, with major jihad attacks in Manchester and London. But now the United States has been included in the multicultural festivities, as jihadis have struck, albeit with limited results, in Wisconsin and Michigan.

A Taliban spokesmen recently said: “Our fight is Jihad and an obligatory worship. And every obligatory act of worship has 70 times more reward in Ramadan.” Not just the Taliban believe that. Another likely believer in those special Ramadan rewards is a Muslim in Milwaukee named Mohamad Hamdan.

Last Thursday, according to Fox6Now.com, Hamdan walked into the U.S. Courthouse in downtown Milwaukee and “began yelling loudly in an Arabic language,” screaming, among other things, “Muhammad,” “Allah,” and “jihad.” According to the criminal complaint against him, he suddenly put his hand into his pocket, which “caused security to fear for their immediate safety.” Hamdan had apparently imbibed well the Qur’an’s command to “strike terror in the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others besides them whom you do not know whom Allah knows.” (Qur’an 8:60)

And he wasn’t finished striking terror in the enemy of Allah. Escorted out of the building by a U.S. Marshal, Hamdan resumed screaming in Arabic, and said in English: “I’m gonna kill you all. Allah. Bomb.”

This led to a massive traffic tie-up in downtown Milwaukee, as the Courthouse and several nearby buildings were evacuated and a bomb-sniffing dog called in. Nothing was found, and Hamdan was charged with making terrorist threats.

Then on the next Wednesday at Bishop International Airport in Flint, Michigan, a Muslim grabbed for his Ramadan reward by striking terror in the enemies of Allah there, screaming “Allahu akbar” and stabbing a police officer, Lt. Jeff Neville, in the neck. The attacker evidently chose his spot carefully, as the Qur’an directs Muslims: “When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks” (47:4).

Like the U.S. Courthouse, Bishop International Airport was evacuated and the FBI called in. Tim Wiley of the FBI’s Detroit field office downplayed the attacker’s cry of “Allahu akbar,” saying: “We are aware of reports that the attacker made statements immediately prior to or while attacking the officer, but it is too early to determine the nature of these alleged statements or whether or not this was an act of terrorism. Based on the information that we have at this time, we believe this to be an isolated incident.”

That’s the last thing it was. There was nothing in the least isolated about the incidents in Michigan or Wisconsin, even if in both cases the Muslims involved were acting alone and were not in touch with the Islamic State or al-Qaeda. These “isolated incidents” all stem from the same motivating ideology and belief system. They increase in frequency during Ramadan because Ramadan is a time when Muslims are supposed to redouble their efforts to please Allah, and the Qur’an makes abundantly and repeatedly clear that jihad attacks against infidels are pleasing to Allah.

Yet as Ramadan jihad comes to Wisconsin and Michigan, the denial and willful ignorance of American authorities remains as thick as ever. Non-Muslims continue to congratulate Muslims on the occasion of Ramadan and behave as if it were wholly and solely a benign religious observance that good multiculturalists and all decent, broad-minded people should applaud.

As the death count spirals ever higher, the fatuity of this mainstream view becomes ever more apparent. But really, it has been apparent for years, although few are willing to say so publicly because of the inevitable barrage of charges that will ensue, of “racism,” “bigotry” and “Islamophobia.” As Ramadan jihad attacks become more frequent and more common inside the United States, expect the “Islamophobia” propaganda to grow ever more strident, shrill, and insistent. When you’re trying to put the Big Lie across, the only way you can overcome the hard evidence of reality is by means of constant repetition.

So in the aftermath of these jihad events in Wisconsin and Michigan, watch for new mainstream media presentations about how Muslims are victimized by Trump-supporting racist louts in…Wisconsin and Michigan.

Robert SpencerSource: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267071/ramadan-jihad-comes-wisconsin-and-michigan-robert-spencer Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Double standards and media myths on North Korea’s “brutal and despotic” regime.

American student Otto Warmbier, 22, passed away in Cincinnati on Monday, only days after he returned from North Korea unable to speak, see or respond to voices. North Korea had sentenced Warmbier to 15 years hard labor based on a bogus charge.

According to The Hidden History of the Korean War, it was South Korea that invaded North Korea. That was the official Soviet position, and no surprise from author I.F. Stone. As John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev explain in Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, Stone was in fact a Soviet agent who took money from the KGB. He made a career of recycling Communist propaganda but “by the time he died in 1989, I.F. Stone had been installed in the pantheon of left-wing heroes as a symbol of rectitude and a teller of truth to power.”

Peter Osnos, founder of PublicAffairs books, explains that the publishing house, “is a tribute to the standards, values, and flair of three persons who have served as mentors to countless reporters, writers, editors, and book people of all kinds, including me.” The first mentor is “I. F. Stone, proprietor of I. F. Stone’s Weekly,” a man who “combined a commitment to the First Amendment with entrepreneurial zeal and reporting skill and became one of the great independent journalists in American history.”

In Hollywood, Communist writers portrayed North Korea as a peaceful, democratic country struggling to defend itself against the evil United States. Stalinist screenwriter Lester Cole, one of Hollywood Ten, praised North Korean cinema in his 1981 memoir Hollywood Red.

In camp schools Shin saw teachers beating students to death for no reason. Students worked as slaves gathering human excrement in freezing conditions. Anyone who does not “acknowledge his sins and instead denies them or carries a deviant opinion of them will be shot immediately.”

This is the Stalinist regime that now menaces the United States and its allies with nuclear weapons. President Trump has responded with a deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), which North Korea, China and Russia find disturbing. Newly elected South Korean president Moon Jae-in opposes further deployment of THAAD, but this has not sparked the interest of congressional Democrats such as Adam Schiff of the House Intelligence Committee.

Did China and Russia perhaps intervene in the South Korean election? The Democrats neglect such questions and continue to charge, with no evidence, that Putin swung the U.S. election for Donald Trump. Adam Schiff supports a travel ban to North Korea but shows no support for the president’s temporary restrictions on travel from six countries where those who seek to murder American citizens now thrive.

The old-line establishment media opposes the travel ban and echoes the baseless charge that Putin and Trump stole the election from progressive champion Hillary Clinton. It’s the same inversion of reality one finds in The Hidden History of the Korean War by “independent journalist” I.F. Stone.

The
First Barbary War, marking the first time that the American flag was
raised in victory on foreign soil, had ended with America standing up to
the pirates, something the established European naval powers had not
done.

In the late 1700s, the newly independent republic of the United States was continually beset by piracy at sea from four Muslim Barbary Coast states: Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco. The U.S., with limited military resources and staggering debts from the War for Independence, sought to establish secure routes for international commerce to spur rapid economic growth needed to build the emerging country. Yet the U.S. faced constant Ottoman attacks on its merchant ships. American and European ships venturing into the region routinely faced capture of crewmembers, who risked being held as slaves until hefty ransoms were paid. The persistent Barbary pirate raids created a major crisis for a new nation that could not afford to either suffer from economic isolation or pay the exorbitant tributes demanded by the pirates.

In Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates (Sentinel, 2015), coauthors Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger explore "the forgotten war that changed American history." In an action-packed thriller that aptly captures the time, place, politics, and circumstances, the authors chronicle the crisis leading up to the Barbary Wars and their triumphant aftermath.

The authors begin their chronicle with 1785, when the American merchant vessel, the Dauphin, was intercepted off the coast of Portugal by an Algerian cannon-equipped vessel, suffering the same fate as many ships of the day venturing near the Barbary Coast. Together with the crew of the schooner Maria, captured the same year, the sailors were shipped off to Algiers to spend years or their entire lifetimes in slavery under the Ottomans.

Kilmeade and Yaeger explain that North African coastal states sustained their fiefdoms by routinely sending off ships to cruise the east Atlantic and Mediterranean looking for prey. For centuries, ships had been attacked in international waters and had their crews and cargoes held for ransom, even those belonging to the great naval powers of the day, France and Great Britain. Rather than fight the pirates, these countries preferred to pay annual tributes to purchase safe passage for their vessels.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, then respective American ambassadors to Britain and France, were confounded by the Muslim practice of attacking a nation outside the context of war and absent an identifiable threat. To understand the problem and negotiate a reasonable solution, Adams visited the office of Tripoli's envoy to Great Britain in London, who welcomed him with great hospitality. When the Tripolitan ambassador, Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, returned the visit a few days later, Adams perceived him as "a benevolent and wise man" with whom the United States could conduct business.

Sharing his positive perceptions and plans to broker an arrangement with Abdrahaman for safe passage of U.S. merchant ships, Adams invited Jefferson to join him in negotiations. Much to their mutual surprise, Abdrahaman unreasonably demanded exorbitant sums of gold for himself and informed the statesmen that additional sums would be required to buy peace with Tunis, Morocco, and Algeria.

Both Adams and Jefferson registered astonishment at the excessive tribute amounts and inquired how the Barbary States could justify "[making] war upon nations who had done them no injury." The Tripolitan ambassador declared that "all nations which [have] not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave." Kilmeade and Yaeger describe the two founders as being "horrified by the [envoy's] religious justification for greed and cruelty." Exhibiting no remorse or regret, the Tripolitan further explained that "every mussulman who was slain in warfare was sure to go to paradise."

Interestingly, Jefferson had read the Koran while in law school, been perplexed by its values, and dismissively relegated a spot for the Muslim holy book next to his collection of Greek mythology. Kilmeade and Yaeger point out the irony of Jefferson, author of "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," being confronted by the stark reality of Islamic doctrine.

Adams and Jefferson knew they couldn't afford to relinquish trade in the Mediterranean and realized they were at an impasse. While Adams preferred to pay for peace in a negotiated settlement and viewed a potential war as too costly and unwinnable, Jefferson, a steadfast believer in the freedom of the seas, recognized the necessity of commissioning an American navy to obtain freedom of passage through battle. Furthermore, he didn't trust the Barbary pirates to keep their word and thought a military solution would permanently end the threat.

As a young nation, America was in a difficult predicament. Trade in the Mediterranean was essential, but any exorbitant payments to pirates would have to be borrowed and piled on to the already burdensome war debt. The founders had to decide between the costs of building the capacity to patrol the waters and making ever increasing payments to guarantee safe passage.

In 1789, Jefferson returned to the United States to become the first secretary of state under George Washington. Even with the increased number of enslaved American ship crew members and the continuing threat to American trade in the Mediterranean, President Washington wanted neither a standing army nor navy and favored a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. His administration made payments to ensure U.S. ships passage through the seas.

Kilmeade and Yaeger relate that, in the end, America's course of action changed after Algeria in 1793 sent out a new flotilla of eight ships to roam the Atlantic near Gibraltar and specifically seek American ships. Following the capture of ten American ships, Washington's political leaders decided to begin building a permanent, professional U.S. Navy despite deep divisions among political parties and regions of the country.

Meanwhile, under presidents Washington and Adams, tributes had continued to be paid to Muslim leaders of the Ottoman Empire. But that policy changed as well because of the humiliation suffered in 1800 by the USS George Washington, the first American warship to enter the Mediterranean. The ship arrived safely in Algiers but failed to carry a significant enough tribute to satisfy the bashaw of Algeria. Under threat of attack, the despotic ruler, along with his extensive entourage and cargo, commandeered the ship and its crew for a visit to the sultan of Constantinople.

After receiving a full report in October 1800 of what had occurred to the George Washington, then-president Jefferson responded with a flotilla of U.S. Marine Corps ships as a show of power to repel future attacks. The declaration of war and naval blockade that followed on Jefferson's orders served as a watershed in the Barbary conflict.

In 1802, with outrage still fresh over the George Washington and Tripoli's continued seizure of American ships, Jefferson signed into law "An Act for the protection of the Commerce and Seamen of the United States against the Tripolitan Corsairs." This legislation authorized the president to end the failed era of appeasement and diplomacy and freed him to pursue a military response against the pirates.

In their book, Kilmeade and Yaeger detail a series of inconclusive battles that occurred afterward until, in 1805 in the Battle of Derna, U.S. Marines achieved a turning point under the leadership of self-declared "General" William Eaton, a former Army captain. Eaton captured Tripoli and raised the American flag in victory, an action memorialized in a line of the Marines Hymn, "to the shores of Tripoli."

Although Eaton saw that a complete victory over Tripoli was imminent, Jefferson's State Department appointee, Tobias Lear, preferred to exercise diplomatic authority. Lear prematurely signed an armistice agreement, an action later condemned as an "inglorious deed" and "the basest treachery on the basest principles." With news of Eaton's initial military success, Lear used the triumph to broker a peace rather than see the conflict through to a successful military end. Sadly, Eaton's victory against the Barbary leaders – the complete humbling of the Tripolitan leader – was underestimated, a declaration of peace was signed, prisoners freed, a small tribute paid, and the near dethroned bashaw of Tripoli retained his kingdom.

Shocked to receive an order to retreat, Eaton had planned to continue the fight to Benghazi and Tripoli for a complete defeat of the enemy. Instead, he was forced to relinquish ground valiantly fought for by his men, a dangerous sign of weakness in a region that respected only strength.

In the end, Jefferson's decision to fight for the freedom of navigation of the seas proved to be the right one. Eaton's successful mission demonstrated that interference with American commerce and the captivity of American seamen required a strong response.

Ultimately, America received two important benefits from this incomplete victory: the free flow of American shipping in the region and the promise that future American captives would not be enslaved, but be treated as POWs.

The First Barbary War, marking the first time that the American flag was raised in victory on foreign soil, had ended with America standing up to the pirates, something the established European naval powers had not done. The young nation's navy now had valuable experience and had proven that it could effectively fight for its interests. As a critical military legacy, it marked the emergence of the young nation as a force to be reckoned with in foreign seas. It was the first American victory outside the Western hemisphere and the first conflict in which the U.S. Navy worked in concert with U.S. land forces to demonstrate that American forces could fight as a cohesive unit in the execution of a war far from home to sustain national honor and respect.

With naval experience under its belt, the U.S. was now well prepared to return to the Maghreb during the War of 1812 and win handily. As a result of that British-instigated conflict which lasted a mere 48 hours, full shipping rights, minus financial fealty, were won for all American ships as well as restitution for damaged vessels and stolen goods.

It wasn't until 1815 that the naval victories won by Commodores William Bainbridge and Stephen Decatur led to treaties ending all tribute payments. After a decisive victory in Algiers, Decatur sailed to Tunis and Tripoli, where he reached similar agreements, gaining reparations and the releases of American and European slaves. Thus, Kilmeade and Yaeger conclude in their dramatic retelling of this mostly forgotten war that the Americans under James Madison finally put a stop to the centuries-old practice of Barbary kidnapping, theft, terror, and slavery. From this early international victory in the Barbary Wars, the U.S. embarked on its journey to become one of the world's greatest military and economic superpowers.

Janet LevySource: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/06/the_forgotten_war_that_changed_american_history.html Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.